Monday, September 5, 2011

NASCAR Says Tuesday For Atlanta Race

It's been a weather weekend to remember. Lots of sports have been affected by rain and lightning, including NASCAR.

Despite waiting for hours, a final shower put the wraps on efforts to dry the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night. Due to weather concerns about flooding from Tropical Storm Lee on Monday, NASCAR will postpone the race until 11AM on Tuesday.

ESPN will have the coverage. Normally in this type of delay situation, the Tech Garage and Infield Pit Studio hits the road to the next destination. The coverage goes back to basics with just the crew in the TV booth and the pit road reporters.

We will be there to live blog the race and hope that the weather clears so the race for the Chase can stay on schedule. Have a great Labor Day!

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Definitely bummed about tonight...good thing I am on leave this week, I'll be ready Tuesday morning! As usual, without all the extra crap with Rusty and Brad gone...this broadcast just might be the best yet..well if they can get the race shots right and show more of the field instead of close-ups all the time...should be interesting to say the least...

TBH, I'm not 100% sure they'll get it in on Tuesday. If they push it to Wednesday, what will they do to the Richmond race? My prediction is they push it back to Wednesday and push the Richmond race to Sunday afternoon.

A shame there's 100% rain forecast for today & a high percent for Tuesday. I hope the window is long enough to get the race in.

I feel bad for the teams. I know some went back to the CLT area others stayed. At least they'll be able to spend the holiday with their family. Of course there's no rest for the weary so I'm sure they'll be working on things for Richmond as well.

pixar--Richmond *might* be pushed back regardless, saw some tweets that there maybe rain in the area.

I'm really disappointed that I won't get to watch the race. I'll be at work on Tuesday, but at least I didn't buy a ticket, fly to Atlanta and have all the costs involved in that to have to come home without having seen the race.

I do like that "less is more" when the networks don't get a chance to use EVERYTHING like they do on race day. It's usually a better broadcast.

I live in the Richmond area, and as Gymmie said, there is rain predicted from the same tropical storm, as it edges onto the mainland.

Some folks around have yet to get their power restored after Irene!

Is this the first time NASCAR actually skipped over a day? I know there have been a couple of Tuesday races, but they've been run after first trying to run to race on Monday. Not that I disagree with their decision at all, but I was wondering if it a first.

And looking back, Watkins Glen was the finest Cup coverages I've seen in a long time, and the race was excellent to boot.

Figures. The Glen was raced on a Monday. No one wanted to be there, and they wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, hence the absence of network fluff, the reluctance of NASCAR to throw cautions unless absolutely necessary (They probably should have thrown one during that period of thick fog, as it can sometimes make asphalt as slick as ice, and while TV reported that the drivers could see things in their immediate vicinity, they were also barreling towards things at 150 mph that they wouldn't be able to see until it was too late), and, the wonderfully simplistic yet informative coverage from both the excellent team in the booth, and the, uh, competent crew on pit road.

Let's hope the race can be run Tuesday, and perhaps we'll see a bit more of that back-to-basics race coverage.

@Bill In Richmond in 2008 Nascar postponed the Nationwide and Cup races from Friday and Saturday to a doubleheader on Sunday due to a tropical storm. They announced it on that Friday. Its not unprecedented.

Best thing for Nascar would be race is rain delayed to Tuesday night. Higher ratings. Always wanted to see midweek primetime Nascar.

JD, for those of us having to DVR, and getting home later in the evening from work, how likely is it that the TV coverage will be a moving target should further rain delays intervene on tuesday. Weather reports suggest it could very well be a late afternoon/evening race. Anything on espn that could relegate to espn2 past some point, any chnace you can get insight from ESPN folks on this and post back?

That would be two days after, Gina, on Saturday. I remember they mentioned it after the Glen because someone--I think it was Regan Smith--is supposed to get married that day. Now that would be a problem.

This from Raceweather: '...some wrap around moisture could impact the race. This will be monitored though we are currently all clear for the 11 AM start.'